Jump to content

Just started and have a few size and targeting questions


Recommended Posts

Hello all,

It's the end of the summer here and I've finally been able to start playing CMBN.

I started the tutorials a couple of days ago and not having played CMSF am learning from scratch.

I'd like to ask a few questions, I think I all ready know the answers to some but would like to hear what others say or lead me to threads where these were discussed.

Here goes:

1) The size of the units, can they be made larger? If not, why not and is it a possibility for future modules? (units are so small for my old man eyes) How about adjusting size color of bases?

2) Targeting lines. There does not seem to be any targeting lines. When the fighting gets furious how do you know who is shooting at whom?

3) When targeting a tank is there no more info on chances to hit or kill?

And thanks for your help in any of these.......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello all,

It's the end of the summer here and I've finally been able to start playing CMBN.

I started the tutorials a couple of days ago and not having played CMSF am learning from scratch.

Welcome aboard!

1) The size of the units, can they be made larger? If not, why not and is it a possibility for future modules? (units are so small for my old man eyes) How about adjusting size color of bases?

No, they can't. The reason is that they're 1:1 scale models and all the code for whether they get hit or not is based on whether your pTruppen's tender pixels are intersected by a bullet track. So if you made them bigger for visibility purposes, you'd be making them bigger for targeting purposes too. It's an acknowledged weakness that unit bases can be difficult-to-impossible to see in certain lighting conditions. There was meant to be some addressing of that in the patch, but I can't see any difference. I think there's been some mod work done on it, but I haven't explored that side of the game yet.

2) Targeting lines. There does not seem to be any targeting lines. When the fighting gets furious how do you know who is shooting at whom?

I find that it's easy enough when the fighting is furious, with all the tracers, but less so when I'm setting up a fireplan. One reason there are no targetting lines is that a given unit can be firing at multiple targets. A US squad could be servicing 12 targets at once. It'd be rare, but certainly an unsplit squad could have 3 targets, easily. A tank could have separate targets for its hull MG and its main/coax, and another for the commander's flexible mount. What I'd like to have is the targeting order lines visible (as an option) in the same way movement paths can be.

3) When targeting a tank is there no more info on chances to hit or kill?

Nope. Again, because of the detail and methods of calculation, there aren't any meaningful numbers to display without plopping a massive spreadsheet of variables in front of you, which would certainly class as "information overload". The tank shot is plotted, not as a "hit" or a "miss", but as a trajectory, and if that trajectory intersects the target, that location on the target is hit. There's no real way to give you a 'chance of hitting', because of all the variables that the shooting unit really hasn't any way of determining. Once the target has been hit, it could have been on one of many different plates, and the angle of impact will vary depending on exactly where the hit came in, so any probabilty calculation for penetration would again give potentially meaningless figures, and be based on a WAG for what the impact conditions actually would be.

4) Is there a way to tell what terrain a unit is in? i.e. Am I in the open ground on the edge of scattered woods or in the woods or am I behind a hedge or in it?

This is both a bone of (occasional) contention and one of the most important things to get out of the CMx1 mindset for. Terrain, like troops, is a 1:1 representation, to a certain level. Leaving aside woods, for a second, you can see what side of the hedge you're on. If you're moving to a hedge, you can see which side the waypoint is on. Trees are 1:1 too. And they say nothing about the state of the ground beneath them. That ground is an entirely separate aspect. It could be open grass, or swamp or rocky or it could be one of the two Forest terrain types. All terrain types have some built-in, abstracted "microterrain" bonuses which represent your pTruppen seeking minor declivities that are too small to register in the 8x8x1 grain of the terrain grid. But the concept of "In the woods" is deader'n the pTruppen of someone who relies on it :)

The bone of contention is that it might seem easy enough to have the 'primary ground type' show up under the mouse cursor while you're looking around, as it did in CMx1, but the contention of BFC, and we kinda have to take this on faith, not having access to the code, is that it is difficult to determine what 'primary' means in the terrain building model, and that to display all the possible factors involved in any given piece of ground would lead to information overload.

5) There used to be a LOS tool that showed what terrain you were looking at. Stone or wood house, open or brush, where the edge of trees started etc. No more?

Nope. That's gone too, for the same reasons of "New Game Engine" that I've mentioned above.

6) Why can't waypoints be adjusted in later turns?

Because the coding effort required to make it so was not considered worthwhile for the returns in game compared to other features, and adding it as an extra would have delayed the release, for insufficient gain. It's no longer as vital as it was in CMx1 because there's no 'order delay', so you lose nothing but the clicks and player-time it takes to rebuild the movement path. Moveable waypoints would just be a convenience. Nice to see, but not high on the list.

7) Do split squads effect morale/fire power?

I always operate with my squads split into teams, if possible. Fire Power is another of the concepts from CMx1 which was ejected when they started building the engine for x2. Each trooper has their weapon, and will use it appropriately within the limits of his physical and mental situation. In some cases a squad that is split will be able to throw more lead downrange than one which hasn't been, as the split will mean that only one team is pinned/cowering/suppressed rather than the entire squad. Other times it'll decrease it because the split team is too spread out and can't see the target. Whether it affects morale or not, overall, is still not clear, to me. I can't separate the improvement in my handling of troops from any game-engine effects squad splitting offers, and I can't be bothered to set up well-controlled tests :)

8) Command lines are gone now too?

Again, the whole C2 thing is very different from Cmx1. Command lines are largely unnecessary. If you click an element of a platoon, all its icons go bright, and you can see where the HQ is and whether it's nearby. In CMx1 any HQ could control any squad, so it helped to know that I-3's HQ was providing leadership to a squad from K-2, but that's no longer the case. It's really not very long before you get to know what distance voice and visual C2 are effective at, and it saves a lot of lines being drawn on a very fine grained game field. Lines that, to be meaningful, would need to communicate to the player what level of C2 they're supposed to be representing.

Have fun with the game, and be prepared to have your had [Edit: hat? head? I dunno - Ed] handed to you to start with. There are so many changes in effect that the new mechanics have brought about (the fear of artillery, the preciousness of armour, the value of patience, the tension between patience and the vulnerabilty of being static while you wait), that fretting over the changes in interface will just be a distraction :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well thanks womble those were excellent answers.

It will lower my frustration level ;)

I'm sure over time I will adapt.

I was concerned that I had asked to many questions in one thread so I broke this down to several. I guess I was doing that while you were answering the mother load

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In some cases a squad that is split will be able to throw more lead downrange than one which hasn't been, as the split will mean that only one team is pinned/cowering/suppressed rather than the entire squad. Other times it'll decrease it because the split team is too spread out and can't see the target. Whether it affects morale or not, overall, is still not clear, to me.

I hope it does. The game provides a great deal of flexibility in this regard and that's great, but feeling compelled to split every squad in the interest of efficiency creates a lot of micro-management in larger scenarios.

This mystery could use some elaboration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well thanks womble those were excellent answers.

It will lower my frustration level ;)

I'm sure over time I will adapt.

You're welcome.

One thing that might speed the adaptation is if you sort out how to use the Alternate keymap file. There's a section on it in the manual, and the alternative file provided is pretty good. I found the whole 'relative' key thing completely unusable and using the alternative removed at a stroke a whole raft of frustrations.

I was concerned that I had asked to many questions in one thread so I broke this down to several. I guess I was doing that while you were answering the mother load

Reckon. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope it does. The game provides a great deal of flexibility in this regard and that's great, but feeling compelled to split every squad in the interest of efficiency creates a lot of micro-management in larger scenarios.

This mystery could use some elaboration.

At the moment, I'd be prepared to keep splitting my squads even if there was some determination that they broke easier. The two primary reasons for splitting are:

1) to get the AT rocket and rifle grenades out of the 'rifle squad' so they only get used when I darn well tell them to be used.

2) to get the team leader and his tommy gun back out of the line of fire. When he's out of range, he still spots and gets shot (and no bugger will pick up the tommy gun) and when he's at firefight range, he's wasting his precious ammo that I need for close assaults, for no more effect than a troop with a Garand, most of the time.

On top of this, the impression I have is that split squads suffer less from casualty effects, but as you say it could be clearer. My experience so far is entirely as the Americans, and might change when I get to playing the other side.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actualy that leads to a another question. :)

I did setup the alternate key mapping and yes that does help allot.

Is there a way to increase/decrease the speed in which the map scrolls when touching the edge. Right now scrolling takes off like a bat outta hell.

I'm a little leery in changing model/texture quality or the vertical sync.

I know there are keyboard and mouse key/wheel controls and perhaps it's just a matter of time before I get used to them but in the mean time if I could slow down the edge scrolling......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can also scroll the map by left-clicking and dragging. If you drag the mouse from the center of the map the map, it scrolls quickly. If you drag near the edge of the map, it scrolls slower.

Uh, that's not precisely the case. You can put the cursor in the middle of the map and then click and drag. It's how far you drag that determines speed. And BTW, you can drag in any direction and the map will move accordingly, not just side to side, like when you move the cursor to the edge. This is almost exclusively the way I navigate around the map, also using the left-arrow and right-arrow keys to rotate the map.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Uh, that's not precisely the case. You can put the cursor in the middle of the map and then click and drag. It's how far you drag that determines speed. And BTW, you can drag in any direction and the map will move accordingly, not just side to side, like when you move the cursor to the edge. This is almost exclusively the way I navigate around the map, also using the left-arrow and right-arrow keys to rotate the map.

Michael

As well as moving the viewpoint across the map by left-click-drag, you can pan its direction by using right-click-drag. Again, the further you push the mouse cursor from its position when you started holding the right button down, the faster the camera will turn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...